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Locally restored car nets big bucks

Luke Bourassa’s 1965 Lincoln Continental sells for $77,000 U.S.
WES 65 Lincoln 1
Luke Bourassa from Jarvie restored this 1965 convertible Lincoln Continental that sold for $77,000 U.S. at an American auction two weeks ago.

WESTLOCK - Luke Bourassa sort of flies under the radar among local autobody shop owners.

He owns Sparrow Coatings and Autobody in Jarvie, he’s had it for about five years. He does business mostly through word-of-mouth. That’s how he got to a 1965 Lincoln Continental, convertible, suicide doors, which he restored about two years ago.

It’s the second one he’s worked on — the other one wasn’t a convertible though — and it’s valued at $77,000 U.S. It recently sold as a fantasy bid car via an American historical car auction, Barrett-Jackson, the world’s greatest, they say.

“Those cars are pretty rare and they don’t make a lot of things for those cars anymore, so you can’t buy new stuff,” said Bourassa. So he restored as much as possible.

He has Lincoln coming his way, another convertible, which he got because the owner say the work he did on the all-black one. “It was on TV!”

Bourassa’s story is not unfamiliar to most Albertans. He’s 37 and moved to Jarvie for an oil job.

“I was painting oil field equipment. I switched from autobody to coatings and then the industry died down so I had a bunch of people ask me to do work at home for their vehicles, and then I started the shop and went from there,” said Bourassa.

He sort of continued like he started: word of mouth. He’s had sign up on Highway 44 for about a month but that’s about it for advertising. “I’m well-known in the car community but not in this area. I’ve done a few things for people out in Jarvie and I’ve gotten work from them, from their friends,” he says.

Plus, the more you grow, the more space you need. For now, he only does one restoration at a time.

“I used to live in Edmonton, so I still get people from Edmonton bringing their stuff out. It’s just recently that people started… I did one local truck and after that people kind of figure out where you are. I just have a Facebook page and I put the fancy stuff on there.”

Everyone’s favourite, he says, is a root beer brown 1954 Chevy truck. The other is a blue and white 1979 Ford — only two were ever made in that colour palette — which he has in the shop right now. He sources the cars from everywhere across Alberta, nothing from Saskatchewan yet.

“I’ve got one guy in Fort McMurray and he just has a whole slew of cars that he wants done. … For the hot rod people, I think they’d rather send it to a specialized mom and pop shop and not just a generic shop,” he explained.

And COVID-19 hasn’t meant much of a change either: “Oddly enough, for some reason, people always have money for their classic cars and I don’t understand why. I do one vehicle for a person out here and two of their friends say ‘Oh, I got a truck that needs repainting or something.’”

There’s time for him to expand, he says he’s just waiting for the right moment.

“My wife’s currently homeschooling three kids. I have two autistic boys so to work from home is kind of a necessity now until they get old enough to either go back to school or be a bit more independent. But it’s working out great,” he says.

The kids love the work he does, one of the boys seems really interested, but Bourassa would rather they find a different skill first. He can always teach him autobody.

Andreea Resmerita, TownandCountryToday.com

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